A progressive voice from the Carolinas, featuring views, news, and dialogue that the corporate media doesn't. In the Mountains of Western North Carolina, Mills River is a rural community about 20 minutes from Asheville.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Paul Craig Roberts...

..Tells it like it is, and like the msm won't. The following excerpt deals with the latest job report, which as you know, leaves out significant groups of unemployed folks. But please make sure to read the entire piece, as it contains important information about the ongoing displacement of the USD as the world's reserve currency.

Excerpt:September employment report: According to the Bureau
of Labor Statistics (BLS), September brought 148,000 new jobs, enough to
keep up with population growth but not reduce the unemployment rate.
Moreover, John Williams (shadowstats.com) says that one-third of these
jobs, or 50,000 per month on average, are phantom jobs produced by the
birth-death model that during difficult economic times overestimates the
number of new jobs from business startups and underestimates job losses
from business failures.

The BLS reports that 22,000 of September’s jobs were new hires by state
governments, which seems odd in view of the ongoing state budgetary
difficulties.

In the private sector, wholesale and retail trade produced 36,900 new
jobs, which seems odd in light of the absence of growth in real median
family income and real retail sales.

Transportation and warehousing produced 23,400 new jobs, concentrated in
transit and ground passenger transportation. This also seems odd
unless the price of gasoline and pinched budgets are forcing people onto
public transportation.

Professional and business services accounted for 32,000 jobs of which 63% are temporary help jobs.

So here you have the job picture that the presstitutes, hyping “the jobs
gain,” don’t tell you. The scary part of the September job report is
that the usual standby, the category of waitresses and bartenders, which
has accounted for a large part of every reported jobs gain since I
began reporting the monthly statistics, shows job loss. Seven thousand
one hundred waitresses and bartenders lost their jobs in September. If
this figure is not a fluke, it is bad news. It signals that fewer
Americans can afford to eat and drink out.

The unemployment rate that is reported is the rate that does not count
as unemployed discouraged workers who are unable to find jobs and cease
to look. This favored rate, the darling of the regime in power, the
presstitutes, and Wall Street, also is not adjusted for the category of
“involuntary part-time workers,” those whose hours have been cut back or
because they are unable to find a full-time job. Obamacare, as is
widely reported, is causing employers to shift their work forces from
full time to part time in order to avoid costs associated with
Obamacare. The BLS places the number of involuntary part-time workers at
7,900,000.

The announced 7.2% unemployment rate is a meaningless number. The rate
can decline for no other reason than people unable to find jobs drop out
of the work force. You are not counted in the work force if you are
discouraged about finding a job and no longer look for a job.

The phenomena of discouraged workers shows up in the measure of the
labor force participation rate, which has declined in the 21st century.
The opportunities for American labor are so restricted that a rising
percentage of the working age population have given up looking for jobs.

Yet, the Obama regime, the Wall Street gangsters, and the pressitute
media tell us how much better the economic situation is becoming as more
small businesses close, as memberships decline in golf clubs, as more
university graduates return home to live with their parents, who are
drawing down their savings to live, as Fed Chairman Bernanke has made it
impossible for them to live on interest payments on their savings.

According to the US census bureau, real median household income in 2012
was $51,017, down 9% from $56,080 in 1999, 13 years ago. In contrast,
annual compensation in 2012 for US CEOs broke all records. Two CEOs
were paid more than $1 billion, and the worst paid among the top ten
took home $100 million. When the presstitutes speak of economic
recovery, they mean recovery for the one percent.... More here.

“In the councils of government we must guard against
the acquisition of power, whether sought or unsought,
by the military industrial complex.
The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties and democratic processes.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower
from his final address to the nation
January 17, 1961

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.
--Thomas Jefferson